Sensor devices that sense the presence, and especially movement of a person, in order to recognize the person's desire to open the moving part of the vehicle, are known for contactless activation of movable parts of the vehicle. The moving part of the vehicle can concern a hatch, and especially a trunk lid of the vehicle, movable window elements also being known, for example, a rear window movable in a trunk lid, which can then be advantageously opened or closed by a generic sensor device, if manual operation of the trunk lid is not possible or hampered. The moving part is referred to subsequently as a hatch for simplification.
The object detected by the sensor device can be a person, who is approaching the vehicle with the intention of opening the trunk. Activation of the trunk lid then describes both an opening process, for example, when the person would like to insert an object with both hands into the trunk, or activation of the trunk lid concerns a closure process of the trunk lid, when the person has removed an object from the trunk with both hands, in order to then close the trunk lid.
The sensor device then includes at least one sensor arranged on the vehicle via a support element. The sensors for trunk lid activation are usually mounted inside the bumper, so that the support element is formed by the bumper itself. It is then known to glue or laminate the sensors on the inside surface of the bumper, the sensors being designed wire-like or film-like as capacitively acting electrodes. The wires or films of sensors formed by electrodes are then applied at least over part or preferably over the entire width of the bumper of the vehicle. Consequently, activation of the trunk lid of the vehicle is possible from different areas in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle trunk. The sensors are therefore a component of the rear bumper, which are glued to the inside of the bumper or fastened to the bumper with fastening devices. It is especially known to insert the sensors already in the plastic injection molding process to produce the bumper, in order to obtain a one-part component with the molded-on sensors.
However, this produces the drawback that essential components of the vehicle, for example, the rear bumper, must be distinguished into components that have the sensor device or components that are designed without the sensor device. Consequently, a reduction in the variety of individual vehicle components is desirable.